Rocket Power: Island of the Menehune

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Island of the Menehune was the third feature telefilm based on the Rocket Power cartoon series. It was transmitted on Nickelodeon on July 19, 2002.


Contents

[edit] Plot

The Rocket Power gang (Otto Rocket, sister Reggie, and friends Sam Dullard and Twister Rodriguez) accompany paterfamilias Raymundo Rocket and his business partner Tito Makani to O'ahu for a well deserved vacation, the occasion being a reunion of Tito's extended family (Brookes Almy voices Tito's mom). Otto becomes fixated on the prospect of surfing the North Shore's Banzai Pipeline. The kids hook up with young Makani cousins Keoni and Leilani (voiced by Matty Liu and Tinashe Kachingwe, the latter of whom had an uncredited role in the movie Masked and Anonymous) who take them on a cross-country bicycle race where they discover one of the menehunes' heiau, from which Sam in a crucial shot greedily and covertly pilfers a small statue.

Once the gang has settled in, Raymundo is smitten by Tito's cousin Noelani (voiced by Kim Mai Guest), who was best friends with his late wife Danielle (voiced in flashback by Shayna Fox, the voice of Reggie) who had died when Otto and Reggie were very little. Spending lots of quality time together, the two suddenly become over-protective: a planned horseback riding outing becomes a pony ride; the kids already wearing helmets and gloves for an ATV excursion are issued jackets and pads and told to go slow; a planned helicopter tour is foregone due to wind. It is revealed that Noelani some years ago had been tandem-surfing Pipe with Danielle, who disappeared after their surfboard broke in a bad wipeout; hence her cautious nature.

[edit] Bad luck?

In a canoe race, Ray elects to remain ashore with Noelani, leaving Tito and the "foursome" to crew a six-person boat. Complicating matters further is Sam being frightened by the appearance of a jellyfish. Strangely, this results in the wooden (or plastic) boat eventually sinking out from under them. In other instances, Otto has close calls in a surfing wipeout, and is dragged into deep water while hanging onto a turtle when free-diving. While at their treehouse accommodations at the Makani ranch, Twister's precious camcorder and favorite swim trunks go missing, forcing him to employ some humorous and drastic counter-measures. Sam begins to think, at first privately, that the menehune are responsible for what's going on, and that his taking the statue was the proximate cause of all these untoward occurrences.

[edit] Rough seas

The entourage eventually visits the Pipeline when it's in a particularly rough mood. Raymundo declares a well-informed no-go. Otto — and then Reggie — begin to act out, and on another day decide to surf the Pipeline on their own, the sibs getting washed into a shoreside cave in a scenario eerily reminiscent of a well-publicised January 1993 incident. Raymundo goes in after them, and the three are eventually rescued due to Twister's vigilance (Noelani plays a significant part as well).

The film is notable in the Rocket Power canon for revealing (among other backstory) the appearance and given name of Otto and Reggie's late mother, which for a long time remained a subject of curiosity among the show's fans (although the episode seems to elaborates that the cause of death was a fatal wipeout). A character stating in the context of an episode that someone important had died also appears to have lifted a long-standing Nickelodeon taboo on the use of the word "death". The film ends as Raymundo reveals to Tito his plans to ask Noelani for her hand in marriage, foreshadowing Rocket Power: The Big Day.

[edit] Trivia

  • Steve Guttenberg, of Police Academy fame, is a voice in this telefilm.
  • This movie reveals that Otto and Reggie may be part Hawaiian.